Monthly Archives: January 2015

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Three masked suspects, one of them armed with a pistol, assaulted an American couple in their 60’s at a home in La Misión, taking approximately 16,000 pesos (US$1,100), jewelry valued at US$25,000 and other belongings.

The elderly couple were put into the kitchen, their faces covered and tied up back-to-back, and the criminals then fled in an unknown direction, and as of yesterday afternoon they have not been apprehended.

According to information obtained, at 6:05PM last January 28, there was a telephone report to the La Misión police station that there had been a violent robbery on calle Salvatierra, in Misión Vieja, and officers went to the location.

When the victims, 65 and 66 years old, were interviewed, they said that moments earlier they were getting ready to leave their home by the garage, when three assailants came in and threatened them with a firearm to then immobilize them with grey tape.

After being asked about their belongings, the criminals took 8,000 pesos and US$1,200 dollars in cash that they kept on shelves, two portable computers and an 18-inch television.

They took six suitcases of clothing and other objects, two cell phones, various documents, two passports in their names, house keys, bank cards, a checkbook and diverse jewelry valued at $US25,000.

It should be mentioned that the two foreigners managed to free themselves with a scissors, and they immediately reported the robbery to the authorities. The Public Minister went to the location and has initiated an investigation.

CANCÚN, Quintana Roo – A housekeeping maid was arrested yesterday morning for stealing money from a room safe at a hotel in Puerto Morelos. The woman put oil on her fingers so as to not leave fingerprints on the keypads of the room safes. The state judicial police said they are investigating if there are more robberies to her account. Housekeepers, cleaning people and security guards are those who commit the thefts in the hospitality centers.

An American who was a guest at the Hotel Cid in this locale reported to reception that he was missing money he had left in the hotel room safe.

The victim told the authorities that a few days earlier he noticed he was missing some dollars. Yesterday morning he decided to place his cell phone in a strategic place and left it recording.

The guest returned to this room and checked the video, saw the housekeeping maid when she approached the safe, opened it and took several dollars.

The evidence was taken to the hotel manager, who identified the maid as Silvia del Carmen N, 37 years old, originally from Campeche.

Personnel from the hospitality center immediately called for the judicial police to arrest the employee.

The investigators took a small sponge from the woman which was soaked in oil, it was what she used on her fingers so as to not leave fingerprints on the safe.

The presumed criminal was consigned to the public minister for the crime of robbery. According to the state attorney general, this was not the first time this has happened. In the next few hours, her legal situation will be determined.

Legal authorities have detected that there are 15 to 20 robberies per week in hotels in the hospitality zone. In their investigations, they have detected that those responsible are the hotel employees.

TIJUANA – Leaving behind their two little daughters and with many dreams in tow, César and his wife, Araceli, left their home in Chalco, Mexico State, to go to Tijuana where they would find a “coyote” to take them to California.

The goal was simple: cross into the United States, get work, stabilize and then look for a way to bring their two daughters, four and five years old. With luck, they could get a work permit.

That is what they had imagined, but the journey for which César Leonardez Hernández and Araceli Morales Santos paid 30,000 pesos (US$2,100), which they had borrowed, did not have a happy ending.

Upon arriving at the Central Bus Station in Tijuana, César talked with a “coyote,” who told him he could not pick them up, but he was going to send a “relative.”

After a wait, a person approached them. He told them to get into a pick-up to be taken to the United States. The agreement was that they were going to cross at the border station, “we did not have to cross over the hills, it was going to be at the border.”

The trip was several hours. The couple remained calm, as their cousin had made a deal with the “coyote” for the place and time when they would meet him.

The pick-up stopped, it was around 1AM. They were told they had arrived, that they were in the United States and that their cousin would be told to come get them when the sun came up.

They took their few belongings from the pick-up and the “coyote” left at high speed.

Uncertainty overcame them, and so they decided to ask a person they found on the road where they were.

“In the town of San Vicente, in Ensenada,” was the response, “is that in Mexico?,” they asked with dismay. When they heard a yes, their plans were dashed, collapsed.

“It is the feeling of impotence, to want to scream, to do something,” said César with a tone of resignation.

“We could do nothing, we were left penniless, without even telephone numbers, with nothing.”

Araceli recollected that they had to walk to Ensenada and from there to Tijuana. Sometimes on the road they found people who gave the a “ride,” water and tortillas, but their pilgrimage appeared to be endless.

“We walked for a day and a half, with no food, with nothing, we had to walk, and walked at night,” said César, and so they huddled on some hill.

The temperature dropped a lot at night and early morning hours. While Araceli slept, César kept a watch. He was afraid they would again be crime victims.

The failed American dream

After long hours of walking and walking, they returned again to Tijuana. They went directly to the Central Bus Station, although with no money to take a bus home.

They stayed there for four days, as if they were passengers, sitting on the benches, thinking of what to do, of whom to turn to.

While there they saw people with bags from the Municipal Department of Family Services, so they approached them and asked how they could get help.

It was in this way that they contacted personnel from the Mejora Programa, of the municipal government, to whom the told their sad story.

The person responsible for Mejora Programa, Rosario Lozada Romero, made the effort to get the young couple bus tickets, and last night they started their trip home.

Lozada Romero said that both of them were in deteriorating condition, as they slept in the hills, walked for long hours and had not eaten enough.

They were taken to a shelter, given clean clothing, food for the trip, and they were accompanied until the end of their episode, with a warning to spread the information among their relatives and friends that “the American dream no longer exists.”

In fact, after what César, 27 and Araclei, 20, have gone through, they swore that they have no thoughts to try that again.

In spite of their bitter experience, they recognized the solidarity of the people they found along the way, who showed compassion for their situation and gave them a glass of water.

César’s objective is to recover from this bitter pill and work to pay back the 30,000 pesos they gave to the “coyote.”

César, who is a construction worker, now values what he had in own land, “it’s better there, more or less.”

According to his itinerary, late Thursday afternoon they will be at home and the nightmare will be over.

Sunday, January 11, 2015, elements of the National Gendarmes were involved in several gunfights in Tijuana, since that date, Desk 12 of the Federal Attorney General, Tijuana
district, has been in charge of the investigation into the events.

The ministerial investigations show that, from the onset, the evidence did not fit with the versions told by the federal agents involved.

The information is unclear, the federal agents declined to make a statement to the local authorities who carried out the investigation in the first hours, and the data they
gave the day of the events, when they had asked for support from the local police departments were imprecise.

Just after 3:30PM on Saturday, January 10, 2015, Central Command relayed a request for help. A group of police were attacked in Rosarito. At first it was said the events happened
while driving in a colonia in Rosarito, when they were passed by a man on a motorcycle, who fired at and wounded gendarmes Julio César López Mora and Israel Torres Castillo, who repelled the attack and killed the attacker.

The second version was that there was a roadblock at the entrance to colonia Lomas Altas I, that they had told the man on the motorcycle to stop, he had refused, shot at the
officers and fled, they had pursued him and killed him. He died inside his home.

When the gendarmes asked for backup, they did know where they were located, and so help came late, and when the police arrived at the location, the federal gendarmes had already gone to the Red Cross in Rosarito, where they were treated, one had a wound to his cheek, the other to a leg.

During the first hours after the shooting, while the State Attorney General had the file, officers Torres Castillo and López Mora declined to make a statement, and so they were
held under arrest.

As such, the Deputy Prosecutor in Rosarito worked on the first criminal part, and then on Sunday, January 11, he passed the file on to the Deputy Prosecutor for Organized Crime
of the state Attorney General, who only had the file for a few hours until the federal Attorney General took jurisdiction of the case.

Since then, what the authorities could clarify was that at the entrance to the colonia, where supposedly there was a roadblock, there were no spent bullet cartridges of
any caliber. Where spent bullet cartridges were found was in the yard and mobile home where Darryl Anderson lived. He was a 60-year old American killed by the gendarmes and identified as the one who attacked the officers. The home was fenced off and closed, and was not freely accessible for the police.

According to the investigative tests, the American tested negative for sodium rhodizonate, which means he did not fire the .32 caliber firearm found in the body’s hand, which
had been fired inside the mobile home, as two spent cartridges were found, but Anderson did not fire the weapon.

At the scene were found another eight 9mm cartridges, which came from the service weapons of the gendarmes, four of the cartridges were in the yard and others inside the home. According to the tests, one of the injured gendarmes had fired his weapon and tested positive for rhodizonate.

At the moment, the federal Public Minister is investigating and it is expected there will be further information during the middle of next week.

La Paz, Baja California Sur – This Tuesday morning, January 20, has no doubt been the smelliest so far this year for the La Paz malecón, as since early on the silting of the sewage lines caused a sewage flow in the drains located at Nicolás Bravo and Aquiles Serdán, in downtown. This caused the sewage to fill the streets down to the port, invading about five streets, although the smell is in a five-block area all around, affecting homes, restaurants, cafes and hotels.

The director of Municipal Sewage System in La Paz, Marta Nevares Esparza, explained that this is all because of the “age of the pipes,” adding to that the culture of the people to toss trash in the street drains and the problems with the thefts of sewage grates, which is increasing and plastic and dirt fills the drain lines.

TIJUANA – “If you are nervous, we’ll give you a few shots of tequila and that way you’ll walk across the border,” explained the woman, joking a little, to the young man deported from Miami in the United States.

He wanted to return to the United States, where he lived more than 15 years. Mexican by birth, he was deported to Tijuana. Without knowing anyone, he spent several days looking for a human trafficker.

He found one after a week. The contact was a woman, who asked him about his deportation to Mexico.

“They came to my apartment, while I was bathing. My friend opened the door, and because I had problems in court, they came directly for me. They knew I had not papers and so they deported me,” told the man who was some 30 years old.

For obvious reasons, he did not want to give his name, but he is once again in the country of skyscrapers, and is back travelling in his sports car on the freeways of Florida.

He paid the guide who tool him back to the country governed by Barack Obama in cash. He walked across without any problem.

The crossing “at the border station costs $5,500 dollars. There are no discounts, it is very difficult to get documents now,” said an anonymous person to EL MEXICANO.

Kidnapping of immigrants has been a hard blow for human traffickers in Tijuana, he recalled.

“It is not like before, a few years ago the method was to take them and leave them lost in the hills if the “migra” showed up, now there are those who kidnap to collect the crossing money, they don’t get to the other side and some times they are killed.”

For that reason, this has become a profitable business for a few in the city. Charging to cross the border illegally ranges around 79,000 pesos (US$5,500), which according to the anonymous source is the safest and most effective way.

“You have to have a visa, an American passport, but additionally, it the person does not look much like the document, we have to give them a little “brush up” so they pass,” said the anonymous speaker.

They always have “documents” and verify there is a similarity, in case it is necessary, they add make-up, sometimes coloring the hair.

Sometimes, he said, “they put on glasses, a mustache, whatever is necessary to look natural, if not the risk to cross is too great and we cannot take them.”

Before, they paid little attention to this aspect because it was easier to enter the United States in a car, but now it is more difficult due to the methods adopted by the Border Patrol, explained the informant.

Now, if the person is nervous, we give them a few shots of tequila and take them to the entrance door during the early morning hours, when thousands of young Americans return after a night of partying in Tijuana.

“There is always the risk of being deported or arrested at the border crossing. When that happens, they don’t pay, at least we are professionals,” he said.

Before constructing the Bicentennial Plaza downtown, it was common to find human traffickers on that street or in bars in the Zona Norte. Now there are “contacts” to connect them to the “polleros.”

The Baja California State Attorney General documented in the last few years several cases where the immigrants or deportees met the traffickers in that area of the city, where most of the cases were just assaults.

Sometimes the victims were taken to homes in the Eastern Zone of the city, where they were kidnapped, sexually attacked and sometimes murdered.

La Paz, Baja California Sur – The dead body which was found yesterday, a little after 5PM in an area behind colonia La Fuente has been identified by his relatives. It was Hermenegildo García Mendoza.

According to what his relatives said, he was a good person, responsible and a good father, “who did not smoke nor drink,” they said.

Hermenegildo García Mendoza was kidnapped from inside the Ferretería del Valle in colonia Camino Real yesterday at 11AM by two people who put him into an unidentified vehicle. He was never heard from again.

His dead body was found yesterday afternoon, with a bullet to the head and another in the abdomen, in an area between the back of colonia Camino Real and colonias La Fuente and Progresso.

At the site where the body waa found were also found six spent .45 caliber cartridges, according to the preliminary report from the state Attorney General.

The victim worked for Coca Cola, where he worked in the mechanical shop. Today his companions gathered at his funeral to say goodbye.

On January 12, 2015, Mexico published a temporary amnesty program for illegal immigrants in the Diario Oficial de la Federación. The program will provide a 4-year temporary residency for those individuals who were in the country illegally before November 9, 2012. Fulano’s careful reading of the program in the original Spanish indicates that very few Americans would qualify for this program, as the applicant must have entered Mexico before November 9, 2012 AND who is living illegally in Mexico on January 13, 2015. An American, or Canadian, who regularly goes back and forth across the border to shop, see the doctor or get mail, would reset the entry date to the last time he reentered Mexico. So, as written, this program would only apply to anyone who has lived in Mexico continuously since before November 9, 2012 and never left, not even for an hour.

The temporary amnesty program does not specify any income or asset levels to get the temporary residency, although there is a long list of items and declarations that one would have to produce to prove one has been in the country since before November 9, 2012. Once the application is made, Mexican Immigration has only 10 days to make a decision. If granted, the applicant will also get the right to work in Mexico. The program calls for some fees for the application procedures, but does not specify the amount. It prevents applicants from being arrested or deported during the application process. The program only provides a one-time four-year temporary residency, with no specific track towards permanent residency or citizenship when the four years are up.

Here is Fulano’s translation of the first two Articles:

TEMPORARY PROGRAM FOR IMMIGRATION ADJUSTMENT

Objective

Article 1. – The objective of the Program is to establish the assumptions, requirements and procedures temporarily applicable for the National Immigration Institute to regularize the immigration status of foreigners who are in the country and express their interest to reside temporarily therein.

Assumptions

Article 2. – This program applies to a foreign person who entered Mexico before November 9, 2012 and who at January 13, 2015 is residing in the country in an irregular (illegal) migratory situation.

The preceding applies provided the foreign person is not subject to any of the following:

I. Have an immigration procedure pending, except that directly arising from such proceedings to comply with this Program.

II. Is subject to a process of assisted return or deportation;

III. Has provided false information or presented before the National Immigration Institute official documentation, false or or genuine, but that was obtained fraudulently;

IV. Have been deported and have a current entrance restriction;

V. Be subject to criminal prosecution or convicted of a felony under the national criminal laws or the provisions of international treaties and conventions to which Mexican is a party;

VI. May compromise national security or public safety based upon history in Mexico or abroad;

VII. Be subject to express prohibitions issued by competent authority;

VIII. Have failed to comply with an order to depart issued within the Program period;

IX. Have committed an irregular immigration status after January 13, 2015, and

Any other portions of Immigration Law, its Regulations and other legal provisions applicable.

In the case of V and VI of this Article, the immigration authorities will assess the meaning of the relevant decision, addressing the principles of social rehabilitation as well as those relating to family reunification.

Tijuana – Faced with the grave situation of border business that finds it on its knees from the competition from Southern California, the president of the Ensenada Chamber of Commerce, Rafael Chávez, says that the Secretary of Tax and Public Credit, Luis Videgaray, needs to come here to understand how we are doing.

He said, “he should come and live with us and take notice of the problems, which can not be handled from 3,500 kilometers away.” He added the Secretary should also implement an intensive campaign to broadcast the news that the Scenic Highway is open and in very good condition.

It is great, but there are people in Ensenada who do not know the road has been repaired and in good condition for both Mexican and foreign visitors to come visit us, said the Ensenada business leader.

Carrillo reiterated that business is in very bad shape, especially in Tijuana, although some 751 businesses closed in Ensenada in 2014, and said in the United States they are charging 8% [for sales taxes], add to that the reforms in exchanging money for dollars and automobile importing.

We are in a very serious crisis in Ensenada and we need help to recover, said the business leader, and this requires public efforts because during 2014 nothing was done in this regard, he said. The truth is that support is needed from the three levels of government to repair the damages, even if is just a small part of what has happened to the Ensenada economy.

Because of the bad treatment received from their father, his children, as well as his wives (yes plural, wives) paid 5,000 pesos (US$350) to have him killed.

The body of José Salvador Flores Torres, who lived in the community of Tzapite, San Luis Potosí, was found Saturday by his wife Isabel Martha, who explained that Friday afternoon her husband left the house, but as he did not return, she started to search for him. He had apparently been killed by gunfire.

The state ministerial police captured the suspected murderers, being his wives, the sisters María Carmen and Isabel Martha Suárez Cervantes, 54 and 58 years old, respectively, as well as his children Ricardo and María Isabela Flores Suárez, 19 and 34 years old, and the person who would be his son-in-law, Celestino Santiago Terán, 21 years old.

A .22 caliber rifle and pistol was seized from those arrested.

Upon interviewing the two sisters, they admitted they hired a person to murder their husband, as they said they were weary of the bad treatment he gave them.

For that reason, she asked for help from her children, Ricardo and María Isabela, who contributed 5,000 pesos to pay Celestino Santiago, the boyfriend of the daughter of the dead man.